


The Next Great Adventure

by pinchess07



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 18:00:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1908519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinchess07/pseuds/pinchess07
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Aren’t you tired, Harry Potter? You just finished fighting one war, and now you’re already enlisting for another?” Death says delicately, and now Harry is positive that Death is taunting him. “I was going to drop you off at London, to at least give you familiar surroundings. The war is happening in America, however, and if you wish to be anywhere important, that’s where you’ll be when you wake up. You deserve a break, I know, and I have the power to drop you off any place in the world, say, the Himalayas, if you so choose.”<br/>Harry grits his teeth. “I’ve nothing to do in the Himalayas.”<br/>“You can be ‘Just Harry’ in this world, Harry Potter. No one would know your past or your powers unless you so choose. Isn’t that what you’ve always wished for?”<br/>Death is standing, stepping towards him, intimidating. Harry doesn’t back down.<br/>“How can I do that, knowing that somewhere else, people are dying?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Next Great Adventure

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'ed.

His next great adventure is set in a strange new world. There are no natural born wizards and the only witches he could find are those that worshipped demons in exchange for the power to make other people suffer. There are more supernatural beings than he ever dreamed of, and most of them are very dangerous to humanity.

He meets Death on his way over to this new world. Death is an old man wearing a black suit, looking very out of place inside the empty Hogwarts Express. He gives Harry a look, one that says, _you are an insignificant human being and you should be glad I deigned to look upon you and let you continue your pathetic existence._ Harry doesn’t resist the urge to straighten up, and as he does so, he notices that he has his Invisibility cloak draped on his arm, the ring with the cracked Resurrection stone on his left pointer finger, and the Elder wand held loosely in his right hand.

Death’s gaze is a hundred times more disconcerting than Dumbledore’s x-ray gazes. His soul is being weighed, yet he can’t muster up the energy to panic, doesn’t care whether he’s naughty or nice at that specific moment of time.

He has done his job, if nothing else. He lifts his chin up and meets Death’s gaze, saying nothing, waiting.

“You cannot go back, Harry Potter. This is a one way trip. You do not need to worry about me wanting the Hallows back, either,” says Death, raising a hand to stop Harry from interrupting his speech. “I know you have already tried to get rid of the other two, but they are rightfully yours now, and only when you are truly ready, only then, you will return all three to me. Just like how Ignotus Peverell decided when his death would be.”

“Oh.”

“Before we arrive, I will be giving you some information that will be beneficial to you. I do not normally associate with…lesser beings, but you have gained my respect, however grudgingly.”

Death tells him about Reapers. Death’s army, soldiers that he would be able to see and interact with. How most of them would likely follow any orders from Harry, seeing as he sort of technically ranks higher than them and his soul can’t get reaped by them.

Death is telling Harry to order his lackeys around, since he’s going to need help adjusting to the new world and he needs resources, like money, like identification, if he wants to peacefully coexist with the human residents of the new world. Harry does all he can to keep all his reactions at bay because Death is far from done giving him information.

“There was a war. There is a war. There will be a war. In this world, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory and Earth are connected, and that means that there are always conflicts between all the beings of the four planes. You can choose whether to join or not. I assure you, there will always be death everywhere, and if you choose to help, you will need to put a whole lot of _effort_ before you affect the status quo.”

Harry can no longer keep quiet by this point. “Hang on! You tell me about a war and then you just, what, expect me to stay on the sidelines?” He remembers _his war_ , everything seared into his memory, remembers feeling helpless and insignificant that summer before fifth year, remembers his anger. He snaps.

“If I can help, then I—”

“That war is truly not your war, Harry Potter,” Death cuts him off, eyes half-lidded, expression undecipherable. “It will be hard enough for you to adjust, and you do not need anything more on top of that. There are enough warriors for Hell and Heaven and the humans are not that bad at holding their ground. They will not appreciate your meddling, I believe. Not Hell nor Heaven, though they may act like it. They will most certainly take advantage of you and your powers. Not the humans either—hunters, they call themselves—they do not trust anything supernatural and they will not hesitate to _hunt_ you.”

It feels like Death is goading him, and Merlin help him, Death is pushing all the right buttons.

“I don’t care! There are always innocents caught in the crossfire, lives lost for no reason, and I do not need a reason to help! All that matters is that I can help, and I will!” Harry shouts, hands clenched in fists. He thinks of Teddy Lupin, one of the many orphans of the war, who will grow up in what should be a better world, but is instead a world without his parents, without the godfather that was assigned to him.

“Aren’t you tired, Harry Potter? You just finished fighting one war, and now you’re already enlisting for another?” Death says delicately, and now Harry is positive that Death is taunting him. “I was going to drop you off at London, to at least give you familiar surroundings. The war is happening in America, however, and if you wish to be anywhere important, that’s where you’ll be when you wake up. You deserve a break, I know, and I have the power to drop you off any place in the world, say, the Himalayas, if you so choose.”

Harry grits his teeth. “I’ve nothing to do in the Himalayas.”

“You can be ‘Just Harry’ in this world, Harry Potter. No one would know your past or your powers unless you so choose. Isn’t that what you’ve always wished for?”

Death is standing, stepping towards him, intimidating. Harry doesn’t back down.

“How can I do that, knowing that somewhere else, people are dying?”

He cannot let this war just be someone else’s problem as long as he has the ability to help. If he did, he would be no better than the majority of the Wizarding World that just sat back, twiddling their thumbs and reading the Daily Prophet while other people fought for their lives. He remembers Colin Creevey, who died during the Battle of Hogwarts.

He shakes his head and tries his utmost to clear away the memories of _everyone else_ who died at Hogwarts. He will not break down in front of Death. He takes a deep breath, looks back at Death—

He sees triumph on Death’s face.

He wakes up in a cabin, with a Reaper wearing a guy hovering over him. Only dead people are supposed to see Reapers, he thinks, because they are horrendous when one can see past their ‘clothes’. He screams loudly and it’s a good thing that the cabin is surrounded by miles of forest all around.

“Master Harry, it is so very wonderful to meet you! My name is Rick, I’ve been chosen among all the Reapers to be your tour guide into this world and help you adjust! Master Death is unable to meet with you at this time, but in his absence, you can rely on any Reaper here on earth and we will be happy to attend to your wishes!”

Harry very nearly bursts into hysterics because not only does this Reaper sound like an overeager teenager, he also reminds Harry of Dobby and Kreacher, once Kreacher had his change of heart.  The Reaper—Rick—continues on to explaining everything Harry needs to survive in the world.

“We’ve already procured identification papers for you, Master Harry. We’ve made everything to closely match your own history, except of course, the part about Hogwarts, since there is no such school here, nor are there any other schools of magic here. Your passport has also been taken care of, as have your bank accounts. We’ve readied several credit cards for your use. Everything is legal, and will stand scrutiny from the government, don’t worry. I can take you car shopping when you are up for it. I can also help you shop for a mansion, if you’d rather do that first.”

Rick rushes through his explanation, his tone upbeat as if there’s nothing else he would rather do than babysit an alien.

“I need…”

Rick looks ready to jump to any order that Harry’s about to give and Harry’s had enough.

“…to sleep. I need time to absorb all this, thank you, I’ll see you when I wake up and we’ll go from there.”

Rick deflates, but nods readily.

Strange new world. It’s 1998 in America and he adjusts slowly to everything. Culture shock is very hard to overcome for him, and his tour guide has been roaming earth for a very long time, but Rick is not human. Rick doesn’t understand, not really. After all, he only wears ‘human clothing’ to do his job, to ferry the living over to the state of death, and he barely interacts with humans.

Maybe he was human once. Harry doesn’t know where Reapers came from, but they’re probably a different species created by Death. Rick’s well versed in the many supernatural beings on earth, though, and Harry takes advantage of that as much as he can, never forgetting about the war that Death had told him of. He lets Rick stick with him for a few months before he gets tired of the constant attention.

He splits his time between learning about technology, welcoming the 21st century like a pro because here, computers can tolerate his magic when he’s not actively using it, and contributing to the war effort.

He scours the news all over the country and asks Rick and any Reaper who happen to be on site for backup and information. He is free to Apparate wherever he won’t be noticed so that he can go to wherever he’s needed. There are no wards against Apparation to stop him.

He eats whatever he fancies, and goes to the movies whenever something catches his eye. He catches up with pop culture because he never does get around to buying his own house and he spends his downtime at motels watching whatever TV show is available.

He doesn’t get around to buying a car either, since he can go around faster if he Apparates. In the beginning he lets the Reapers tow him around from place to place, but he doesn’t like relying on them too much.

He is used to a life without too much luxury and this is as luxurious as he could get without feeling guilty. The Reapers have set up a huge bank account for him and he doesn’t go into the details of that, details like where the money comes from. He doesn’t want to.

He does buy clothes for himself, though. Clothes that fit. He rarely buys anything expensive, and he prefers jumpers—or sweaters, as they’re called here in America—because more often than not his hunts happen at night and it’s cold. But he travels light, with only a backpack for his essentials, and he’s never learned the undetectable extension charm from Hermione, so he usually gives any extra clothes to the nearest homeless shelter and buys new clothes the next time he stops over at a town or city for more than two nights.

He casts _Protego Totalum_ on most of the buildings that he passes by on a case. He knows he is just one person, and America is really, really big, and he can’t cover every building in every state he’s in. He prioritizes on schools, police stations, hospitals, libraries, churches, anywhere where large groups of people gather at any one time. Just a little something to keep enemies away from anyone inside. It’s not enough, but it’s something.

He’s very good at recognizing and memorizing weaknesses of the supernatural beings that he encounters. He never forgets to buy salt, and he gets enough practice at conjuring iron and silver as time goes by.

He memorizes the Latin demon exorcism chant (and learns Latin properly) because demon possessions are increasing, over the years. He gets an anti-possession tattoo on the heel of his right foot. The Reapers tell him about demon traps and he memorizes those too, carves them onto the place he stays at for the night and places Notice-Me-Not charms on them.

Defense Against the Dark Arts is his favorite subject, it bears repeating. He’d be an Auror, if he’d stayed in his world. He takes care not to be noticed by the police at crime scenes, wears his Invisibility cloak on his hunts. It’s a huge advantage because not only can it cloak his presence from Death, it also cloaks his presence for everything else in this world.

The Reapers think he is an oddball, but they’re loyal. Without the supernatural creatures messing around, humans mostly follow the natural order of death, so they continue to entertain his requests and questions. Save for when a Reaper gets snagged by someone through a spell and forced to obey that person’s wishes on who to kill; cases like these usually take some time for him to track down since he doesn’t exactly take roll call over the Reapers every morning. There are thousands of reapers all over the world and hundreds of them in America and they don’t carry cellphones with them. It’ll reach him through the grapevine and one time he was even late enough coming to the rescue that some other hunters had closed the case first.

He makes sure he doesn’t get a reputation. He heeds Death’s words about Heaven, Hell and other hunters, about how they wouldn’t like his meddling. If other hunters arrive at his hunts, he leaves and lets them finish the job because if a hunter is at one crime scene then he isn’t anywhere else and there is always someplace else that needs his help.

He hears about the power of Angels from Reapers, but he doesn’t actually get tangled with them until September of 2008. Possibly because the Angels only decided to actively play in the war at that time. This is also the time when he gets tangled with the Winchesters, who are the hunters’ main forces, according to the Reapers.

Anthony is a reaper assigned at a hospital, and that day was the first time they meet. Like every other Reaper, he is eager to please, and he gives his report enthusiastically.

“There’s this woman, she burned her eyes out and the aura around her just screams of _Angel!_ She’s just out of the ICU, she’ll live, and I can take you to her so you can feel for yourself how—”

Harry raises his hand in a placating gesture. Hearing anyone talk excitedly about a woman burning her eyes out is just wrong, but he is interested about what happened.  “Calm down. I’ll go with you, but remember to lead me to an area where no one will notice me Apparating, okay?”

Anthony still nods his head excitedly but he gives him coordinates in a somewhat calmer voice. Ten minutes later he’s ambling through the hospital, following Anthony at a leisurely pace through the white corridors and lying to anyone and everyone who takes notice of his presence, since he’s not wearing his Invisibility cloak. He figures he could just take a quick peep at the woman and scram.

Pamela Barnes is supposed to be sleeping, but the moment Harry sticks his head through the door to her room she startles so bad and her scream is the scream of the desperate and terrified and it nearly drowns out all the beeping noises and alarms from the machines hooked up to her.

“PLEASE! NO, I DON’T WANT TO DIE! NOOOOOO!”

There is a sudden rush of nurses and he gets elbowed to the side so he’s not blocking the door. Next thing he knows there’s a firm grip on the back of his neck and another on his arm and he’s being dragged out of the hospital and into a conveniently deserted side alley.

Anthony tries to follow him, but Harry shakes his head discreetly. He doesn’t ask for direct assistance from the Reapers if he could help it, and he knows that whoever this person is, is a human since Anthony didn’t take special notice of him.

Probably a hunter.

Harry is face-planted onto a rough wall and his glasses dig into the bridge of his nose uncomfortably. The guy behind him growls.

“Who are you and whaddaya want with Pamela?”

The guy lets Harry breathe and answer. Lucky he wasn’t the shoot first ask questions later. Or maybe he just got spooked by the woman—Pamela’s shout. Harry babbles and stammers through his answer, a perfectly thought out lie. It’s been ten years and he’s loads better at lying.

“I’m s-sorry! I-I don’t know w-what you mean! I was at the h-hospital with my older brother a-and I was scheduled for laser eye s-surgery and I o-overheard one of the nurses saying something about someone getting their eyes b-burned out and I just got c-curious! I’m sorry! I didn’t do a-anything! Please l-let me go!”

He was hiccupping by the end, the tone of his voice scared and nervous as any normal person’s voice would be.

The guy behind him growls louder and mashes him against the wall harder. The hand on his neck is now a vice grip, immovable.

“Wrong answer! Christo!” Harry feels cold water splash at him from the back of his head and when he doesn’t react, he feels a packet of something, probably salt, poured over him. He stays still, and now there is a knife pointed at the back of his neck. Probably silver. He feels it slice a thin line and he’s bleeding a moment later.

“I dunno what you are, but you sure as hell ain’t tellin’ the truth! Your pulse was steady all throughout your explana—”

Yeah, he’s gonna have bruises on his neck when he wakes up. The guy didn’t bother letting him breathe, so Harry passes out. That’ll teach him to underestimate a hunter.

He wakes up briefly to hear the guy speaking to someone on the phone.

“—stable and out of the ICU by this morning, but unfortunately something made a disturbance and scared Pamela out of her wits, which also made everything attached to her go haywire. She calmed down after a few minutes but she’ll be under observation for ‘bout two more days.”

The guy pauses, probably listening to the reply, and catches a glimpse of Harry with his eyes open. Harry doesn’t really get the chance to look at the guy before getting hit on the head and knocked out again.

Next time he wakes, he gets a faceful of water. Probably holy water, but he still isn’t a demon, so yeah, nothing sizzles and gets cooked.

“Rise and shine, shorty!”

There are now two guys in front of him, and from what he can see in the corner of his eyes, they’re in a warehouse covered with a whole lot of sigils.

“Look at that, not even trying to plead your way out?” The guy who’s speaking is vaguely thinner, and probably younger than the one who caught him. He blinks when his vision doesn’t focus and realizes that he doesn’t have his glasses.

“Is that Pamela woman a psychic, then? Even without eyes, she’s probably got better vision than me right now. I am practically blind without my glasses and I don’t have sixth sense,” Harry says, a half-truth. No, he doesn’t have sixth sense, but he can sense the supernatural, just like he can sense magic. The two people before him are perfectly normal. Human.

“Who are you? Are you Castiel? How did you know about Pamela?”

The guy is circling him. Harry can feel a headache coming on.

“My name is Harry. I’ve no idea who Cassiel—or Casteel—whatever his name is, and I swear I didn’t know that Pamela woman until I poked my head through her door,” Harry states flatly.

“Yeah, and why don’t I believe you?”

Harry rolls his eyes and tells another half-truth.

“My name is Harry Potter and I am cursed. My parents died when I was barely over a year old, murdered by a terrorist in our own home. I was sent to live with my aunt’s family to live in anonymity and everything was fine until I turned eleven and went to the same boarding school my parents did. The same terrorist tried very hard to finish me off during my school days. Almost half of the school body—my classmates, friends and professors—died in the last attack before that terrorist was finally taken care of for real. I seem to have the very special ability of causing everyone around me to die and that’s the only reason I can think of for that woman to react that way…if she’s psychic…” Harry trails off at the end, looking intently at his captors. He still doesn’t have his glasses though, so he couldn’t really read their expressions.

“That’s not even remotely believable. Bobby, what do you say we ring this dinner bell and we go from there? If that Castiel guy knows this one, we’ll know,” the thinner guy says, and the other guy, apparently called Bobby, nods slowly.

He goes over to another desk, takes a pinch of some powder from a bowl, and sprinkles it into a larger bowl, which begins to smoke. He chants in Latin in what Harry recognizes as a summoning.

Harry has to remind himself that he can Apparate out of there whenever he chooses, as long as he doesn’t get knocked out again, and blames his curiosity about his recent—and imminent—mishaps. Angels are _rare._ Like, first time in two thousand years, rare. He’s not gonna let this chance go.

He spreads his senses and waits, barely noticing his captors sitting on the tables as time passes.

“You sure you did the ritual right?” the thinner guy asks and doesn’t get a verbal answer. “Sorry. Touchy, touchy, huh?”

Harry feels a warmth spreading on his senses. Wow. If demons were a veritable blend of everything dirty imaginable, then angels were purity personified. He closes his eyes and savors the aura approaching them.

As if on cue, a loud rattling shakes the roof. His captors arm themselves with shotguns and take positions at the far end of the warehouse.

“Wishful thinking, but maybe it's just the wind,” the thinner guy says.

The door bursts open and the angel named Castiel stalks in, wearing a man. At this point, Harry’s already desensitized about _vessels_ and besides, the angel who wears the man is a lot better to look at than Reapers or demons. A lot of power, the oozing sense of purity, and a whole lot more edges than Harry thought. Actually, those were probably wings. Angels are supposed to have them. Very good reason for human eyes to burn out, even if those eyes belonged to a psychic. Why the hell isn’t he wearing glasses so he can take a better look?

The light bulbs shatter in a shower of sparks as Castiel passes them. As he approaches, the two hunters both open fire, but the shots do not even slow him down. The thinner guy takes a knife as Castiel gets close.

“Who are you?”

“I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition,” Castiel says, and Harry can just feel the sense of truth and seriousness in the angel’s voice. Harry lets his eyelids drop, savoring the warmth of this remarkable being.

“Yeah. Thanks for that.”

There are scuffles and the sound of someone dropping heavily to the ground the next minute. Then there are fingers poking his forehead and he’s out. Again. Apparently the angel was also cautious and wanted to make sure there would be no witnesses.

Harry is so going to Apparate the hell away once he wakes up.

Okay, he’s going to Apparate once nobody’s watching him, but problem is, his two captors have turned to three, and the third one is way bigger than the other two. He feels a lot like a contaminated human, like he was possessed but not fully possessed by a demon. He certainly has demonic aura. The third guy is also the guy who slices a line on his left arm with a knife so forgive Harry for snapping, okay?

“Hey! The least you guys could do is to give back my glasses because I can’t see! Stop slicing me up!”

The third guy actually pauses.

“Dean, what glasses?” he asks.

The second guy, named Dean, apparently, snorts. It’s Bobby who answers.

“He was wearin’ these round glasses when we met, and they broke so I took ‘em off.”

“These glasses’re ugly, you should thank Bobby for getting rid of them for you,” Dean says.

Harry sighs. “Fine, thank you Bobby, for breaking them. But I’m a little tied up at the moment and I won’t be able to buy a new pair just yet so GIVE. IT. HERE.”

Harry thinks Dean rolls his eyes, before standing over to Harry and putting the glasses back to where they belong. He grimaces at Dean, giving him a once over through his cracked lenses, moving on to Bobby, and then onto the third guy.

“So, since we’re apparently having a crazy party, who are you? I’m Harry.”

“Sam.”

Harry cocks his head at Sam, waiting for more, but doesn’t get anything else.

“You gonna let me go?”

“NO.”

No hesitation at all.

Harry sighs deeply.

“I’m an alien and I got curious about humans. That’s why she got scared of me.”

“There is no such thing!” It’s Dean who refutes him. “Just like there’s no such thing as angels!”

“I didn’t say anything about angels. Was that the one that blew up the lights? The one with the wings and all?”

Dean is hissing on him immediately.

“Who said anything about wings?”

“I did. All angels have wings, duh. Even Cupid has wings. For starters, every angel statue or picture has them,” Harry says dryly.

“The guy last night—you were out cold! You couldn’t have seen—”

“Shadowy wings? I’m afraid someone didn’t give me my glasses back last night so those are the only description I could give. By the way you’re reacting, you saw those too.”

Indeed, Dean’s face pales.

“Look, what do I have to do for you to let me go? I swear I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time! How come you’re meeting up with angels anyway? They’re supposed to only show themselves to, uh, holy people and such! Devoted people! And yeah, you don’t look like God worshippers. Your hospitality sucks. If you’re not gonna let me go, can you at least give me some food? Can’t you hear my stomach growling? I’m sure you can spare some burgers. Or pizza. Pizza would be better.” Harry is full on whining and being as obnoxious as could, hoping to annoy his captors enough that they’d leave the room for at least one minute so he could Apparate without witnesses.

Well, there’s nothing stopping him from doing that while there are people in the room, but he’s spent ten years in this world being careful and he’s really not looking forward to saying goodbye to his anonymity.

He might have to do it anyway. He feels the status quo changing, because _this is it._ All the players are finally on the table. Demons, humans, supernatural creatures. Angels, finally. And then Harry, and the Reapers. He wonders.

He wonders where Death is, why the guy even cared to meet him in the beginning, why he hasn’t shown up again. Why he didn’t mind giving Harry control over the Reapers. He isn’t stupid. He’s practically Death’s Queen right now.

He wonders what Death’s endgame is, in this convoluted game of chess.

When he resurfaces from his musings, only Bobby in the room with him. There’s still no food in sight, though he doesn’t really need to eat. He studies the room, and notes that the walls are made of iron and there is a devil trap under the chair he’s tied to. Bobby is looking at him intently, and Harry doesn’t even try to strike up another conversation.

He goes back to his musings.

Sometime later, Rick visits him, unseen and unheard by Bobby. Rick wants to rescue him, but Harry doesn’t give permission and Rick retreats.

There is a situation, and Rick doesn’t tell him about it because he didn’t ask. He only knows something is happening because Sam and Dean barge into the room and convince Bobby to knock him out again.

Harry doesn’t know how much time passes after that.

He opens his green, green eyes to the feeling of angry spirits in the house. He has no memory of getting out of the chair he’s tied into, no memory of leaving the iron-walled room. The spirits have so much resentment, so much anger, wanting to take the lives of the living, wanting to drag them down so they could suffer _together._

“COME.”

His speaks in a quiet voice, but in this state, he is undeniably the _Master of Death_ and his voice echoes all around. The spirits, they come to him, as they should. They crowd around him, waiting. Harry thinks about Reapers, _tugs,_ and half a dozen Reapers materialize beside the spirits. Harry nods and they take the spirits away.

Rick appears beside him.

“Forgive me, Rick. You should have told me earlier there was an emergency and I would have come. Give me a minute, I need to speak with the hunters, then I’ll go where you need me,” Harry says, and Rick nods gratefully.

The hunters are in the middle of casting a spell near the fireplace.

Harry knows they cannot hurt him, not badly, nothing that won’t heal. He’s takes precaution anyway and makes no sudden movements.

“Complete the spell please, before any more spirits are summoned from the dead.”

He turns on his heel and Apparates away to the coordinates that Rick had given him before he could get shot.

Twenty other hunters are dead and he visits each place where someone died, making sure that there are no lingering angry spirits and taking the Reapers’ version of events.

From the grapevine, he learns that this was done by a demon named Lilith. This was a carefully thought out attack, raising the dead that had unfinished agenda with hunters. The number of hunters in America has been severely depleted and Lilith is playing smartly.

There’ve been more angels dispatched to Earth, the Reapers report. In fact, six angels died, and Harry visits those places too. What else does he find? Traces of demons, more dead bodies. Signs of battle that occurred in the last week. _Skirmishes_ , Harry thinks.

The Reapers don’t think that the angel deaths are time-sensitive. That’s the reason why they haven’t reported it before the bi-monthly ‘anything weirder than normal’ debriefings.

It feels like the war is picking up steam. Harry helps clean up the best he can, using magic to speed things up considerably.

He books it back to Bobby’s as soon as he can. He spins into existence into the middle of Bobby’s living room with an unnaturally loud bang, which always happens when he is in a hurry. He wakes the three residents and gets an angel blade ready to stab his heart, courtesy of the same angel from before.

 “Who are you, and what business does a Reaper have with these people?” Castiel says and what he says barely registers with Harry, what with the angel being so close to him, all his warmth and light, it’s all Harry can do to stay standing.

“Hey! Answer him!” Dean snaps, his own knife clutched in his hand, ready to strike anytime, and Harry realizes he’s spaced out, staring at the angel, the angel staring back at him as if trying to use Legilimency. Maybe he could, who knows.

Harry drops his eyes to the floor, cheeks turning red in embarrassment. He clears his throat and looks up again.

 “My name is Harry Potter. It’s very nice to meet you, Castiel. ‘s my first time meeting an actual angel on earth!” Harry can’t help it, can’t help thinking _maybe it will go better than I expected._ He hasn’t been stabbed yet.

“What are your intentions toward—”

“Whoa, whoa!” Harry interrupts, fully present now, because no, just no. “You sound like I’ve been stalking, or, or, Merlin forbid, courting one of your daughters. No.”

“I do not understand that reference,” comes out of Castiel’s mouth and Harry can tell the angel means it and decides to give him a break.

“Yeah, um, alright. Reasons. Let’s talk about why I’m here, fine. I came to this world ten years ago, alright? And there’s this war, never ending. Sure, sometimes there are times of peace, but the war has never officially ended. There are sides to this war, but that doesn’t matter. There’s _collateral damage._ Lives lost for no important reason. People dying before their time. I was given a choice. In fact, I was advised to stay away, but to me, the status quo needed to change. And it wasn’t gonna change by itself, so here I am, changing the status quo.”

“And what do you mean by that, exactly?” Dean demands.

Harry turns to face him.

“Demons belong in Hell, Angels belong in Heaven. Humans live on Earth. And Earth just so happens to be the battleground. I’ve been doing what I can to help, considering the circumstances.”

“Oh yeah? And why should we believe you?” Bobby asks.

“We saw what you did earlier, those spirits followed your orders. You could have been the one that ordered them to attack us in the first pla—”

Harry cuts through Sam’s words with a sharp glare.

“A demon named Lilith was the one who raised those spirits. Twenty other hunters have died, six angels, and eighty-five dead people who were possessed by demons this week. I’m sure Castiel here could corroborate that story if he’s been debriefed by his superiors. I’m not actually a Reaper. I’m still human, mostly. But yes, I associate with Reapers. They’ve been doing their jobs, keeping natural order, making sure those scheduled to die actually _die._ They’re actually overworked, and no one’s taken a vacation since, uh, ever. The last year alone, hundreds of unscheduled deaths. Believe it or not, I have been _hunting_ , just like you guys. Only I’m more efficient and no one will see me if I don’t want them to.”

Harry mutters “ _Accio_ backpack” under his breath, and his backpack soars from who knows where his captors stashed it into his hands. He knows it hasn’t been tampered with because he put a compulsion on it, one that makes people other than Harry want to leave the bag alone. He pulls out his laptop and powers it on, lays it on a table for the others to see.

Harry documents all his hunts for posterity and the last page is all about the mystery of a woman with eyes completely burned out from their sockets as reported by Anthony. It’s like keeping a diary and Harry’s glad it would be of use now. He notes down everything he finds out from the Reapers, from his own experiences, because he knows a lot and there’s a lot more he doesn’t know. He memorizes the basics but he’s liable to forget the little details, and he can’t carry a whole library.

Sam is scrolling through everything, Bobby is occasionally gasping out loud at some of the cases he recognizes, Castiel is maybe still trying Legilimency on Harry and Dean is scowling fiercely at Harry, arms crossed across his chest.

“So what’s the catch? What do you want with us?” Dean asks. Harry snorts.

“I’ve been volunteering for ten years and you ask me what’s the catch? You want a catch? Here it is. I want in, on your team. I’ve been handling the hunts all by my lonesome, Reapers as backup, of course, but I do all the legwork. It’s a little lonely, I have to say. I’m used to being part of a team. If you accept, you get my cooperation, my resources. Money. Information. I can even put a _No Reaping_ notice on your souls until we get everything sorted out.”

“And if we refuse, what? You Reap our souls right here, right now?” Bobby says. “I ain’t buyin’ it, kid!”

“No. If you refuse, it’s your loss. I won’t do anything to hinder you, I won’t Reap your souls or tell anyone else to Reap your souls before they’re due.”

Harry hasn’t really paid attention to the three souls before him, hasn’t looked closely. He knows human souls, because he’s still mostly human. They’re not remarkable to him, not like Castiel is. They’re not horrendous to his sight like Reapers are. They’re not intolerable like all the demons he’s gotten rid of. They’re just…human. Normal. Mostly normal, in Sam’s case.

“He’s telling the truth,” Castiel declares, serious as a heart attack, eyes solemn.

What do you know, it seems like he’s lucky enough to have an angel believe him.

“There’s no reason for you to refuse, really. Hunters are outnumbered thirty to one in this war. Humanity needs all the help it can get. You know I’m right. The Reapers tell me you guys are actually at the center of all this mess, and that means you’re up to speed. We need to exchange information, we need to plan. For example, Castiel here. And all the other angels that are suddenly being deployed to Earth. Do you know why?” Harry asks hopefully. Small chance of getting an answer, but still worth a try.

“We still haven’t decided anything!” Bobby objects.

“Well decide as fast as you can because _there’s no time to lose!_ ” Harry barks.

“If we agree, what, we get the Reapers on our side?” Sam asks tentatively.

“You get me on your side. You get my resources, which include the Reapers. Don’t think you can tell the Reapers to do anything because only I can do that. Or Death, since they’re his. You won’t even be able to see them, but rest assured, they’re great to have on your side.”

“Dean…” Sam says slowly. Dean grunts.

“I’m thinking, Sam!” Dean turns to look at him. “You say you’ve been hunting for years. How do you fight demons? You kill them? You have a, a magic spell, a weapon, what?”

Harry stares confusedly at him.

“Same way everyone takes care of them. I chant the Latin exorcism. I use demon traps. If the person they possessed is still alive, I bring them to a hospital if they’re injured and if not, I help them get back home.”

“And you can do all that alone? One on one is doable, but if there are several demons then…” Sam and Dean share a dark look.

“It’s not like they can fight me if they’re knocked out cold,” Harry says, idly scratching his nose with his right hand. Castiel’s hand closes over his wrist in a flash, and his other hand gently goes over the words _I must not tell lies_ carved on his skin.

“How did you get this?” Castiel asks. Harry is sure he only imagines the tenderness on Castiel’s voice.

“…Torture. It doesn’t matter. Are you guys going to take longer deciding? Because I have things to do, Reapers to see,” Harry says. He doesn’t retract his hand from Castiel’s grip.

Bobby, Dean and Sam give each other looks and nod at him.

“Alright, I guess we can work together. You’re right, we need all the help we can get if we’re gonna stop the Apocalypse,” Dean says.

“Hang on, Apocalypse? _The Apocalypse?_ ”

The details take a few hours.

Rick appears and hands him a bag with all the things he requested and Harry’s never considered it before, but it must be beyond weird, a bag suddenly appearing on thin air, him talking to no one they could see nor hear. Castiel is long gone, back to Heaven, probably. Harry hands the bag to Dean and the hunter peruses the contents gingerly, then more intently once he realizes what the contents are: a bunch of credit cards and phones.

“You guys can keep the credit cards. These are totally legit, and the Reapers are happy to cover our expenses. The phones, too. Gimme one, I didn’t need to use them before since I didn’t have anyone to contact. Most of my hunts take me through different states, I go in, get the job done, and out again, as fast as I can. You guys are gonna need a way to keep in contact,” Harry says. Dean tosses a flip phone at him, and Harry checks that the other numbers are already programmed in before he pockets it. Sam looks up from reading Harry’s records on the laptop.

“Yeah, that thing you did earlier! You can teleport, how—?”

“Not something I can teach you, sorry. Thanks for telling me what you know about Lilith and everything else. I’ll try to find as much as I can about the Apocalypse and the _Seals_ business and for that, I need to visit the Reapers on site, try to keep ahead of the game and such. See what I can do about keeping the seals from being broken,” Harry says, grabbing his backpack. “You can keep my laptop for now.”

“You can’t do that here? You can just summon the Reapers here, can’t you? You just did that,” Bobby says, gesturing at Rick’s delivery.

“Yes, I can ask them to come here, talk to them, ask them what they know. You guys will spend the whole time gawking at me while I talk to thin air. I’ll be able to find the Seals with the help of the Reapers. I need to be on site of the Seals, I’ll figure things out better if I actually know what the situation is on site. There are hunts that I’ll need to go to, I’m sure. There always is, in this huge country. I want to go with you guys whenever you hunt, so call me or text me, okay? Ta,” Harry says, waving his hand as he turns on his heel and revisits the places where angels died in the last week. He assigns one Reaper to follow each hunter while he’s gone and the hunters are none the wiser.

There are clues that he hadn’t noticed before, when he didn’t know that the angels were guarding Seals.

He revisits what he’s learned about each and every place where the skirmishes happened and things worry him. With the help of the Reapers, he slowly tries to figure things out.

There are at least half a dozen and at most, fifteen demons dead in the skirmish places. The dead angels are always alone, and they die in a place not far from the demons. They had time to get away after smiting the demons. There is always another angel presence where an angel died, but there are no other physical clues about that missing angel in the place where the skirmish happened.

The dead angels leave dark echoes of their spread wings, as if their wings had burned when they died. As if someone had used charcoal to paint their wings in their memory. He sneaks in to police stations to study what information the police have regarding the angel bodies.

They have their arms spread wide, a single, very efficient stab wound on each of their necks.

Harry takes a deep breath and asks Rona, the Reaper nearest to him.

“The angel here, he didn’t…you noticed his presence only after the demons got here?”

“Yes, Master Harry. If he was here before that I would have noticed him and investigated earlier.”

Rona has never interfered in any fight and probably never would. She would just wait for people to die and help them move on. That is the Reapers’ way. Harry doesn’t blame her.

The angels are reacting to the attacks that the demons make on the seals. That means they’re one step behind, but that doesn’t make sense, the angels should already know the locations of the seals here on earth, they should already have guards posted beforehand. His Reapers would have informed Harry if any more angels have been deployed on Earth; Harry had them on high alert level regarding anything with angels and demons. There are angels coming and going, yes, but none staying in places for longer than a few minutes. No angel stays long enough to be considered guarding anything.

Harry’s asked Castiel what he knew, but Castiel doesn’t know anything beyond what he’d told Dean. Castiel is only made aware of things that are relevant to his mission.

There’s also Sam Winchester, who has been seen with a demon very recently, and has also been on a place where there an angel had smote demons. No dead angel anywhere near, but Harry can confirm that one demon had been killed by Sam after the angel who did the smiting was long gone.

Harry asks the reapers if they knew the name of the demon Sam associates with.

Ruby, they call her. Has been with Sam on and off since four months ago, when Dean died.

“Hang on, Dean died?” Harry sputters in disbelief. Dean is clearly alive now, and why hasn’t he been notified of this before?

“You never cared before about the other hunters, Master Harry,” Rick replies with the slightest reproach. Harry nods, acknowledging the point. “He was revived by the angel named Castiel, as you know.”

Harry vaguely remembers Castiel saying something of the sort the first time Harry saw him.

Harry considers the situation. His team of a few thousand Reapers now has four additional members. Bobby Singer, a seasoned hunter with a collection of knowledge and acquaintances. Dean Winchester, a man apparently important enough that someone upstairs ordered an angel to bring him back alive and whole from the Pit. Castiel, the angel who brought the said man back from the Pit, just following his orders from very questionable sources. Sam Winchester, the younger brother straying from the straight and narrow and keeping secrets from his family.

Maybe they’ll have a chance of stopping the Apocalypse.

Small chance, but worth a try.

**Author's Note:**

> That's all she wrote!
> 
> I haven't written any fanfic in years, and this is the first one in a long time that I posted. I'm still not cured of my aversion to long fics and so these bits are the only bits that I'll be posting. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Find me on tumblr @pollethelazy


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